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Folk ARPS: Over 145 After Action Reports

Seems like people have returned from their holidays in force, as the headcount for the year's first TacTues was impressive 26 players. We were worryingly successful this evening, as we managed to win River Assault with men to spare (Martin Kropotnik didn't stop us this time), Blufor took their second victory ever in Cratesistance, Valley was swept through with little casualties and lots of people were still alive when Zargabaddies SE was called, as Fer didn't want to show all his cards for the joint Folk-CiA-LDDK-ARPS Coop event.

Thanks for everyone for showing up and playing nice, and special thanks to new players and people who stayed to test Wolfenswan's Hunter Hunted.

River AssaultHeroic CO
I've never played River Assault attacking over the dam. Apparently that approach, as well as completing the mission overall, have achieved mythical status.

Myths Busted!

The plan was simple; we'd taxi to the dam, leave MMG on overwatch with the mortar to hit any bunkers, and have A/B/C advance over the dam in sequence. Things went poorly as bunkers on the far side of the river destroyed the M113 and disabled the BTR before we could get to the RV position. We lost two people, I think? After getting bored of waiting for people to get their stuff together I lead the charge (followed by Harakka's Alpha) on the positions on our side of the dam. We took no casualties.

The next fifteen or so minutes were an agonizingly slow crawl across the dam, with a friendly fireteam catching up to me only for the last few meters. Between the crack shots made by the MMG/MTR section and some careful sniping from roofs we managed to clear the far side. Things got hairy again when enemy armour turned up, but someone managed a beaut of an RPG shot that decrewed it. I think we lost another guy in a firefight with the troops that bailed from it.

We had a number of minor injuries securing our beach head, but then pushed into the target village as planned. I personally destroyed the artillery guns. Having completed our primary objective with minimal casualties we then pressed on to the optional one. My plan was "charge" and the FTLs filled in the rest. IceRaiser finally got ahead of me but eventually had his PC crash. I finally bought the farm just outside the objective.

The remaining fireteams managed to clear out the last few stragglers and blow up all three parked enemy M113s.

MEDALS FOR EVERYONE! (Quadruple for me, plus a purple heart)

CratesistanceDefender Alpha FTL
The randomised layout was reasonably favourable; we knew the enemy pretty much had to hit C and D and would probably also try to take A and B as they were far away from us. CO had me positional alpha to cover C and then move up to get eyes on B. Opfor blew A, and I got sniped just moments before I would have been hidden in a bush overlooking B.

Sadly the evil Opfor Menace managed to draw our defences from D and destroy that as well as A and B, earning them the win.

ValleyReinf AAR for Charlie
I crashed out after the first few engagements. I got some good shots in and our FTL was doing well.

Zargabaddies2Plt Delta FTL
We shared a mumble channel with Charlie, which got used a little less than I had hoped, but we were always within arms reach of each other. It went pretty well, don't have much to say about it.

Should be fun to play it with 60-80 on Sunday!

Hunter HuntedLocal Alpha Grenadier
Another test mission, I didn't see anything. Well, I saw one guy once, but didn't get a positive ID before he escaped. Mission called due to bugs/crashed choppers.

Lessons\Discussion
As CO in River Assault I felt a bit disconnected; people weren't responding to me in a timely fashion which is why I was in the front getting all the kills myself (I only needed a medic three times!). I think it might be an idea for the CO to shout to all players, with FTLs doing the responses on (c)ommand (c)ircuit as usual.

Some people disagree, but I felt a mumble room for eight is about right, whilst four is a bit too few even if it masks the worst parts of VON.

We seemed to be slowly pulling the overwatch thing together. I saw it used in River Assault, Cratesistance (not that it did me any good :) ) and Zargabaddies. A bit more practice and we'll be able to crack the toughest of nuts.

After getting our stuff together and some screaming at the BTR driver we manged to arrive to the point outside the first enemy postion as we dismounted we took heavy fire and i ordered my sqaud to stay put in a small ditch expect my AR who i ordered to engage the enemy. After some regrouping i manged to drag my squadmembers down into the first point where we set up to cross the dam tho i slowed down due to wanting to spread out my ftl member over the bridge while leaving the AR to supress the enemy on the far side, of-course i kinda broke my own spacing rules and a grenade wounded 2 of us., after a while we manged to get over the help the CO secure the area once it was secure alpha was sent over and that's when i heard the bumming of a BMP-2 quickly enough i seized a RPG from a fallen enemy and proceed to strike a nice rear hit.. then we killed a bunch of contacts and completed the mission weee.
Great work guys.Cratesistance

After boldly going for the A cache and a minor screw up with a satchel we fell back towards CO to go for the D cache after it came apparent that we enemy near the Alpha FT we were ordered to proceeded to C instead. Where we killed a few AI(?) and i rushed in to plant the satchel while under fire,after getting my team to a safe distance i detonated the bomb,then we won

Nullkigan's plan was to set up MMG and mortar on a small hill southwest of the dam, clear the enemy force guarding the west side of the dam and then have the infantry cross while one element provides overwatch. There was a bit of initial difficulty in getting all the needed equipment on board the M113 we were using for transport, but after overcoming the challenges of ARMA2 inventory system we were on our way. The BTR manned by Bravo was already getting sporadically engaged as we rode, but everyone made it to the RV point on the hill in relative safety.

The feeling of safety ended as we dismounted and both vehicles, parked on the ridge to provide fire support, took heavy fire from the static defences on the dam and were disabled (and in the case of the M113, blown up). Once MMG was in place the elements started advancing to the buildings on the dam's west side, first CO in a mad dash, followed by Alpha and the rest.
Unfortunately Qazi was lost along the way. The defenders were already pretty dead once we arrived, so Alpha took up positions in the building to provide overwatch for the troops to cross the dam.

The crossing was challenging but eventually successful with valuable assistance from MMG's mortar. Luckily for us the BMP wheeling about on the eastern side just drove by without doing much, and Martin Konopnik was nowhere to be seen.
Once everyone was on the other side of the dam we started pushing for the artillery base, taking out the BMP and its infantry contents on the way. Alpha managed to avoid most of the action, with just a few stragglers between us and the base.

The artillery base was relatively calm when we arrived, and the guns were promptly blown up. This would already have been a great victory, but we decided to top it off by destroying the vehicles at another enemy base nearby. Once again the trip was pretty calm for Alpha, and once we arrived after checking out some suspicious buildings nearby, the depot was already secured by MMG team.
CO Nullkigan decided to celebrate this by finally succumbing to enemy bullets, this being maybe the fourth time during the mission he got shot. I promptly took command, ordered destruction of the remaining vehicles and basked in the glory of my successful command as we declared the mission a victory.

Here's a video of the mission from my viewpoint, with the most boring bits cut out.

Cratesistance
CDF CO: Unaco

Bravo

FTL: Washington

harakka (attached medic)

Alpha, Charlie fireteams

NAPA guerrillas' logistics aren't always the best: today they had placed their caches in a sort of C shape about 1.5km across, with 2 caches north, 2 west and 1 south. We started off almost in the middle of the C shape, in excellent position to attack all the caches. As the destruction of only 3 was required, Unaco's plan was to take the two northern ones by surprise and set satchels on timer so they'd blow simultaneously later when we were already attacking a third one.

This proved to work pretty well, even though one of the explosions was mistimed. Alpha and Bravo (to which I was attached as medic) took care of the two initial caches and Charlie was sent off to gank the cache farthest away from the initial two. Bravo was sent to the nearest cache as safeguard, taking out an enemy scout along the way.

By the time we arrived in the cache's vicinity however, Charlie was already engaging their southernmost cache's defenders and from what I heard on the radio, managed to set up the bomb after an intense but brief firefight and secure CDF victory.

Even though my team didn't see a lot of action, it was very entertaining to witness Unaco's planning mind games. And, as always, it's nice to run around in the foggy forests. That's what I made the mission for after all!

ValleyThis was a fairly by-the-numbers job, with CO Egg setting up an initial plan of fireteams advancing in a line through the valley. It worked. Also, IceRaiser has some kind of strange fixation with goats.

Zargabaddies SEThis was a test for the upcoming Folk/ARPS, CiA & LDDK joint event, with us doing a runthrough of the initial part of the mission. We were reasonably successful, taking little losses until getting to the dry riverbed. Stuff seemed to work and Fer didn't want to show all his cards, so the mission was called. I doubt we could have made it much further alive anyway...

Hunter HuntedCDF CO: Fer

Alpha: FTL harakka, Nullkigan, MixMasterZero

Bravo, Charlie fireteams

OPFOR CO: Draakon
This was the first test run of a new adversarial mission by Wolfenswan. The idea is pretty interesting: a small team of Spetsnaz have to take out a CDF major passing through an area that is patrolled by both human and AI CDF soldiers, and exfiltrate via a human-piloted chopper. The area is also littered with movement-triggered ground flares that give away the Spetsnaz' position. It is however night, and only the Spetsnaz have nightvision equipment.

Due to pitch black night and very low visibility range the Spetsnaz could have been right next to us without us knowing it, and my teammate Nullkigan suspected that to be the case at least once. Fer wanted Alpha to get eyes on the road the major was travelling on but we were a bit late, and the Spetsnaz successfully took out the major. A flare was tripped about 300m from Alpha's position but we didn't manage to catch the guys who did it.

Fer arranged us to cordon the most likely landing position and then move to the next one when the helicopter sound was heard nearby. However the Spetsnaz sort of failed to exfiltrate: in difficult flying conditions the ace pilot IceRaiser attempted a landing that was beyond even his skill, and broke the chopper. The assassins had however split up, and some had already managed to leg it outside the CDF-patrolled area, disappearing into the night.

A very interesting and moody mission, and Wolfenswan has already incorporated input from the playtest into the next version. Hopefully we can play it soon.

Other stuffI felt the CC Mumble setup worked nicely in River Assault, though there's probably a lot to improve on the actual comms procedure. I'm very willing to use CC again, though it does involve a slight setup hassle which may be a barrier for people. I wish Mumble had a shortcut for toggling the CC tag..

[AAR] Tue 10 January 2012: We All Died

Missions:

Halted

Cocktails

Force Ten

Cordon Bleu

Surgical Spirits

I hate you all and I think it showed. Tonight featured truly extraordinary amounts of death. Plenty of new and returning faces made sure we had lots of bodies to build a fort out of. Sadly nobody was left to BUILD said fort.

Halted went well. Armed with Lee Enfields (and one AK-47 per squad), we had to engage superior numbers of better equipped forces, then escape after causing a certain number of casualties. We all died.

Cocktails saw two teams of players duke it out. Usually it's one sided, but the defenders won with two survivors, even though it was ~12:9! I myself put bullets in at least three people (only got one kill, sadly) before being executed by Comrade Traitor Wolfenswan.

Force Ten was a bit of a cluster. I'll work on optimising the mission for multiplayer more. After a few false starts we did get an older version running... only for it to turn out to be night. We all died. Repeatedly. As the creator of this mission, I was satisfied.

Cordon Bleu is another hard one. Unusually we managed to break through. Sole survivor Head lives to tell the tale of glorious victory. Until I send the commissars round.

Surgical Spirits would have been a victory if not for scripting errors. We went into it knowing it'd be a test though, and would have otherwise won.

Again, thank you to everyone who turned up and apologies for the mess during Force Ten. See you next week for more death (or maybe victory, we'll see).

Force 10 was epic, once we actually got everyone in and got playing. I'm not going to write a post on it, but I'll share these screenshots... I killed the Commander and got the Golden Gun again! And then got shot.

My experience of this mission consisted of not being entirely sure if I was following my squad at any time, watching what I assumed was my FTL die, then hiding in a building until I looked out of a window and failed to shoot the enemy looking at me through it. That was ok though, because everyone else experienced much the same, I think.

Cocktails

The mission began with someone nearby to me throwing a grenade at their own feet, requiring the attention of the medic and delaying our exciting drive in the Lada. My squad had already driven off (see: Halted and my incompetence at following FTLs) so I waited until the unfortunate grenade lobber had been healed, then hopped into the back of the nearest Lada, driven by a different FTL (I think). After an uneventful drive, we arrived at the drop off, got out, and I finally met up with Alpha: the suicide charge squad. As soon as the attack order was given, we raced up the hill to the mansion. My FTL told me to lob a grenade over the wall, so I proceeded to bounce one off the wall instead. Then the FTL was injured (I think it was wolfenswan...) so I stood guard, not realising that I could actually perform first aid for a good five minutes, while the rest of the team attacked the mansion and died. After finally reviving the FTL, we sneaked round the gate to revive another squadmate, followed by a swift jog up the hill to the other gate. Up there by a tree we found another injured team mate so the FTL went to revive him. I covered the gate, noticed movement, shot wildly, but the movement shot back and I was incapacitated.

Force Ten

Once I finally got into the mission, I found myself around 500m from the rest of the team and armed with a M249. "Excellent", I thought, "This'll be like playing support in BF3". How wrong I was. I caught up with my squad, but still failed miserably to actually follow my FTL (which was nullkigan, I think). [NB: I know that the spacebar will identify people, but I had completely forgotten at the time] We advanced down the road, sort of, taking fire from both sides. I failed to find anything to shoot. Then nullkigan accidentally gave me command of the squad so I did the only sensible thing and ran about like a headless chicken until I found a building to hide in. I watched a couple of squadmates die or become incapacitated, and resolved to go out and kill something, or at least make it out of the building. So I rushed across the road to a cafe or something with a glass lower floor. I looked at my map and noticed an enemy marked. Putting the map away, I looked up, saw the enemy, tried to shoot him through the glass, and got knocked out. Ten minutes later (maybe, I lost track of time) I noticed that I happened to be in the house where all the other knocked out guys were being dragged. I was saved! Miraculously I was revived, and went outside to see if there was anything to shoot. Unfortunately, there wasn't, until I noticed something in the distance, fired a few bursts at it, then got knocked out by something else.

Overall it was great fun, but I really need to work on actually being part of my squad...

You can't actually spacebar scan with the current server settings (which makes rangefinders useful again), but as a couple of people have mentioned trouble with identifying squadmates I'll look into it some more tomorrow.

STHud alleviates things (see the mods thread), and on a number of missions you should see a flag on the map screen telling you where each squad leader is, but neither one is newbie friendly.

You can't actually spacebar scan with the current server settings (which makes rangefinders useful again), but as a couple of people have mentioned trouble with identifying squadmates I'll look into it some more tomorrow.

STHud alleviates things (see the mods thread), and on a number of missions you should see a flag on the map screen telling you where each squad leader is, but neither one is newbie friendly.

I recently installed the TrueUser on-screen GPS mod, but that didn't work in this mission. I believe that would also greatly help, at least for scanning the immediate surroundings.

I recently installed the TrueUser on-screen GPS mod, but that didn't work in this mission. I believe that would also greatly help, at least for scanning the immediate surroundings.

The TrueUser GPS mod only makes the ARMA2 standard GPS feature less visually bulky, it doesn't actually change anything in the way it works. You can still only display GPS (Right Ctrl+M) if you have one in your inventory.

I think there is an option in the "difficulty" settings that switches on the labels on friendlies. It's probably forced off by the server. I think turning that on, along with some other "newbie-friendly" options would help in knowing where you are and if you're shooting in the right direction :D
I know it detracts from realism, but I would like to suggest that at least in the first couple of missions we play with these options (friendly tags, extended HUD info, etc) on so we the noobs at least have a clue of what's going on and who we're killing :D

I think there is an option in the "difficulty" settings that switches on the labels on friendlies. It's probably forced off by the server. I think turning that on, along with some other "newbie-friendly" options would help in knowing where you are and if you're shooting in the right direction :D
I know it detracts from realism, but I would like to suggest that at least in the first couple of missions we play with these options (friendly tags, extended HUD info, etc) on so we the noobs at least have a clue of what's going on and who we're killing :D

Try a few of the suggested mods. Especially the sthud. Otherwise I'd recommend against toning down the difficulty as it'll just get you used to arbitrary helpers that you won't have any more sooner or later. It's normal to be confused as fuck at the beginning and hardly shooting a bullet (and if so, hitting friendlies). Just roll with it and after a few sessions you'll improve.

Another classic evening involving lots of painful deaths. I took the liberty of FRAPS'ing our attempt at Force Ten, a mission which is rapidly becoming my favourite on the server despite, (or probably because of) the overwhelming odds stacked against us and the prospects of almost certain death:

Also on the topic of not having friendly labels, I agree that while it is somewhat confusing at first you DO get used to it surprisingly quickly; this is coming from someone who's spent many years playing MP with pretty much all the helpers on.

In the interests of accessibility I have re-enabled HUD=1 for the server default difficulty setting. This does bring back that horrible crutch called spacebar scanning, but makes things easier on the new guys.

E: Roods, check out the guide to using mumble. You'll get half your screen back if you fine-tune the overlay a little ;)

Pf this makes me wish I had more time to play on Tuesdays or during the week...

Spacebar scanning is pushing the spacebar and then that sort of circular reticle appears which you can hover over humans or vehicles and it tells you their class or model but more importantly if it is friendly or not.

Or you can do like me and shoot first, and then when you find out it was a TK, pretend you don't know who did it...

The more important feature of HUD=1, for new people, is the squad leader indicator on HUD. This should help in knowing who to follow and where to be. Remember this only applies to missions played on the default difficulty level on the server, playing on veteran/expert will still have most of the helpful things disabled.

Also keep in mind that space scanning will only reveal information on units your unit / squad has spotted and knows something about: scanning a distant unit, friend or enemy, may give no indication of anyone being there at all until you whip out the scope / binocs. Though especially on Chernarus you may be able to spot things with space scanning before you actually have a visual, thanks to the game not taking all the foliage into account.